THE 2004 CAMPAIGN: THE DEMOCRATIC NOMINEE; A Looser, More Jovial Kerry Prepares for Voters' Choice

By JODI WILGOREN

Published: November 1, 2004

Correction Appended

Stuffed into a hotel elevator in the first hours of Saturday morning, Senator John Kerry put his loyal and long-suffering press secretary, David Wade, in a mock headlock, then swatted him in the back of the head. ''Not bad for 30 points down in New Hampshire, eh?'' Mr. Wade recalled Mr. Kerry saying.

A year ago, as former President Bill Clinton said as he stood by his side last week before some 100,000 fans in Philadelphia, Mr. Kerry's quest for even the Democratic nomination seemed ''dead as a doornail.'' Now he is in a dead heat for the big prize. His desperate ditching of his campaign manager and mortgaging his house to reverse seemingly impossible odds in this state's early primary are but a bad dream.

On the final hill of this roller-coaster campaign, Mr. Kerry has been relaxed and playful yet workmanlike and focused, visibly weary -- and hopelessly superstitious. This looser, more jovial Mr. Kerry, even as some around him show their increasing stress, replaces the brooding, super-serious persona he has displayed on the campaign trail for much of the year.

Behind the curtain of his airplane cabin, Mr. Kerry and some of his closest friends wound their way through the Indiana Jones trilogy on DVD. The other morning in Wisconsin, he summoned the campaign photographer to capture his sober strategist, Bob Shrum, wearing a puffy yellow foam cheesehead. Between Catholic Mass and Baptist church on Sunday morning in Ohio, he stopped his motorcade to toss a football with his former brother-in-law, David Thorne.

He has jumped into the shower ahead of his wake-up calls, cut back on his telephone chats with an endless circles of advisers and, mostly, delivered the new lines in his stripped-down stump speech with determination. He knew instantly he wanted to make a statement of unity upon the emergence of a videotape from Osama bin Laden on Friday afternoon, and strode purposefully, alone, across the tarmac in West Palm Beach, Fla., to do so.

But as shadows settle under his eyes, he has sapped the energy of some crowds with his less-than-spellbinding ways, and made more than a few slips: cheering the University of Wisconsin Badgers while in the neighboring swing state of Iowa, and repeatedly referring to a Cleveland company as making ''wire paper,'' rather than wire hangers.

With a four-leaf clover he got before his stunning comeback in the Iowa caucuses in one pocket, and an Ohio buckeye someone gave him when he became the Democratic standard-bearer in the other, Mr. Kerry is taking no chances. Just look at the Boston Red Sox cap on the curly brown hair of Josh Gottheimer, his New York-bred speechwriter. Landing on the wrong side of a bet during the American League Championship Series, Mr. Gottheimer, a Yankees lover, was to wear the loathed hat all day on Oct. 21, but now his boss will not let him take it off.

Aides said that Mr. Kerry also turned from the television when any polls, like the ones this weekend showing President Bush edging ahead, flashed across CNN, and had refused to discuss a potential transition or even victory or concession speeches for Tuesday night.

''It's part superstition, it's also part just discipline,'' said one senior staff member. ''If we seem to get excited about something, he'll say, 'No, it's a poll, it doesn't matter. Keep your eyes on the prize.' He says a lot, 'All you can do is win every day, don't get ahead of yourself.'''

Mr. Kerry, 60, has been at this now for nearly two full years -- or, depending how you look at it, since his Yale classmates teased him by playing ''Hail to the Chief'' on kazoos whenever he entered the room.

There is a calm confidence about him in these closing days, as if he buys into his lectures to supporters that this ''most important election of our lifetime'' is now in their hands. He increasingly speaks of things -- a hunting trip in an Ohio cornfield where he ''bagged a few geese,'' American democracy itself -- as ''blessings,'' and has been sharing more personal stories on the stump.

In Reno, Nev., he told of knocking on doors with his sister Peggy for Adlai Stevenson in 1952. In Madison, Wis., Columbus, Ohio, and Miami he mentioned taking his daughters to their first concert, on Bruce Springsteen's ''Born in the USA'' tour.

Those closest to him say he has been genuinely moved by the huge crowds at his stops, the voters he meets, and the political and cultural heroes -- Mr. Clinton, Mr. Springsteen, the former astronaut and Ohio senator John Glenn -- introducing him each day.

''He loved what Bruce said, the words that Bruce spoke about John Kerry,'' Stephanie Cutter, the communications director, said of Mr. Springsteen's poetic tribute. ''He asked for a copy of Bruce's remarks, he has it with him, he keeps reading it over and over. He keeps saying to me, 'This is good, isn't it?'''

Mr. Kerry has been buoyed these past two weeks by the history-making come-from-behind success of his hometown team, hopping up to the cockpit for score updates as he flitted from one swing state to another.

He spent 10 minutes throwing a baseball last Saturday on the tarmac in Pueblo, Colo., with his 27-year-old daughter, Vanessa, patiently coaching her as she tottered on spike heels. Upon the final World Series out on Wednesday night, he bolted from his hotel suite in Toledo, Ohio, yelling down the hall to aides working in an adjacent room, ''Sox win! World Champs!'' He called his brother Cameron for a postgame debrief and, before going to bed, told his trip director, Setti Warren, ''We have five games left of our own.''

Ms. Kerry said her perennial phone tag with her father this week had been at once parochial and poignant. He left a sympathy message on Tuesday when he learned she had a root canal. Another night, she said, he wondered, ''Do you know why I want to be president of the United States?''

''I was like no, Pappy, why, I know why, but I like to hear those answers,'' Ms. Kerry recalled, adding that this time he said it was to pacify the Middle East. ''He's more focused. The little things that used to bother him, he doesn't even mention any more. He's given up his exercise. He used to complain about that; I haven't heard him complain about that. He knows this long journey's almost over.''

The other day at the front of the plane, Mr. Kerry was staring at a briefing book, trying to sound out a complicated name on his thank-you list. ''Lower down on the page it had the pronunciation,'' Ms. Kerry recalled. ''I just happened to see it before him and I pointed it out to him, and he said, 'You insolent child,' and we just started laughing.

''Five minutes later I said, 'Hey Dad,' and I pointed, and I did the hand gestures he does on stage, and he recognized it, and he absolutely cracked up laughing, to the point where he couldn't breathe.''

Besides his two daughters, who have each spent a couple of the final days with him before heading out to campaign solo, Mr. Kerry has taken some confidants aboard his chartered Boeing 757 to play cards, watch movies like ''Caddyshack'' and ''Lord of the Rings,'' or listen as he strums his Spanish classical guitar. Two friends of his wife's, Ron Davenport, who runs the black radio network Sheridan Broadcasting, and Ari Kopelman, the chief executive of Chanel, have been on the plane, along with Dan Barbiero, Mr. Kerry's prep school and college roommate, and his first wife's brother, Mr. Thorne.

On Friday in Orlando, he introduced his Navy crewmate, Del Sandusky, with the most intimate words he had perhaps ever spoken publicly about his time in Vietnam, recalling their tour on a 50-foot boat ''with a lot of guns and a lot of people.''

''He was responsible for moving that boat in the direction we wanted; he had two throttles and a steering wheel, and sometimes he held onto those plenty tight, because that's all he had to hang onto, that and his faith in God,'' Mr. Kerry told his audience. ''We would not be here today, either of us, were it not for his courage or his skill or his unfailing ability to follow orders instantaneously immediately. Even when I said that we're going into that ambush, or turn to the right, we're going straight ahead right into it, he just turned that boat we went straight into it.''

The next morning in Appleton, Wis., the day dawned cold and the dark sky threatened rain, and campaign aides were brainstorming how to keep Mr. Kerry's cue cards dry. ''He was very excited, he said, 'I have a great idea: plastic sheets!''' Mr. Wade, the press secretary, said later. ''It was as if he discovered electricity.''

As he boarded his plane here for a last flight to Florida on Sunday evening, Mr. Kerry smiled at the spectacle of the flight attendants decked out in orange feather boas and fluffy cat's ears for Halloween. Asked what he was dressed as, Mr. Kerry, his tie loose and his trademark mustard-colored barn jacket over a suit coat, said, ''My costume is future president.''

Photos: Senator John Kerry, while remaining focused, has also shown his playful side of late. (Photo by Morry Gash/Associated Press)(pg. A1); Senator John Kerry at a rally in Manchester, N.H., yesterday. Mr. Kerry is said to be genuinely moved by the huge crowds at his campaign stops. (Photo by Stephen Crowley/The New York Times)(pg. A18)

Correction: November 5, 2004, Friday
A front-page article on Monday about John Kerry's relaxed disposition in the final days of the campaign misspelled the given name of the chief executive of Chanel, a friend on the candidate's chartered plane. He is Arie Kopelman, not Ari.